


Connection

by morganya



Category: Queer Eye for the Straight Guy RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-01-23
Updated: 2004-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 06:57:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/209986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thom is a Yankee. Kyan is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connection

**Author's Note:**

> Blame the cold weather and [these pictures](http://www.livejournal.com/community/queereye/275863.html#cutid1) for giving me ideas.

The first thing Thom noticed when he got off the plane at Miami International was the throng of people with zombie eyes shuffling through the halls, dragging their suitcases behind them like dogs on a leash. The second thing was the disappointing confirmation that all airports looked alike, identical industrial wastelands with bad lighting. Thom shifted his bag to his other shoulder and went to try to find where Kyan's plane was coming in.

This was the first vacation they'd gotten in a while, and even so, it was going to be interrupted by the opening of some club thing in Miami Beach. Kyan and Thom were the only ones who decided to go down to Florida a few days early, Thom because he wanted to get a head start on lazing on the beach drinking fluorescent liquids with chunks of pineapple in them, and Kyan because he wanted to get the plane ride over with as soon as possible. Kyan hated flying.

"You've got to meet me there, Thom," he'd said, with a degree of earnestness that Thom hadn't known he could reach, "you'll be there anyway, you can't just leave me in the airport by myself."

"What, are you going to be so desperate to see a familiar face?"

Kyan blinked. "Well, _yeah_."

So he'd laughed and said sure, secretly pleased that Kyan would think to ask him.

Thom moved through the terminal, aware of people glancing at him and then glancing away quickly, a silent connection that cut through any residual travel crankiness. He respectfully pretended not to notice, since they didn't expect him to.

Kyan's plane would arrive in twenty minutes. Thom paused by the ticket counter outside the gate and dug his cell phone out of his pocket, praying a major disaster hadn't occurred in the four hours he'd been gone. Before he'd left, he'd said that he was going to turn the phone off, that he was going to be completely incommunicado while he was on vacation, but he tended not to obey his own instructions.

While he checked through his voicemail (six new messages, nothing horrible happened yet), a woman in a flowy peasant blouse passed him, her eyes fixed on the floor. Two steps behind her was a girl, probably the daughter, no more than twelve, who was having a harder time keeping her head down. When they had almost passed the daughter glanced at her mother and then looked up at him, grinning, her braces making her smile endearingly lopsided. He made sure the mother wasn't looking and grinned back, rippling his fingers in a low wave. She giggled and moved off.

Overhead the loudspeaker announced something that sounded as if Kyan's plane was coming in; it was hard to tell over the mechanical distortion. Thom erased the last of the voicemail messages and put his phone away.

It took five minutes to spot Kyan when the gate finally opened; he was walking with his head down, sunglasses on, bag slung across his shoulders. As he got closer Thom could see the hard set of his mouth, finely sculpted lips pressed together in a thin line. He finally looked up and caught Thom's eye, which was a good thing, because it prevented Thom from bellowing his name across the airport.

Kyan stepped towards him, taking off his sunglasses; his eyes receded back in his head. Thom spread his arms. He meant to drawl something campily, to make Kyan laugh and relax, but something about Kyan's closed, pale face stopped him, and when he spoke, it came out almost tender. "How you doin'?"

"Hey," Kyan said, and grabbed him around the waist. "I fuckin' hate planes."

"Yeah," Thom said, patting him between the shoulder blades, as though he were choking. "Yeah, I know."

Kyan always bounced back quickly; within five minutes he'd pulled away, resuming his normal expression, and said, "So, where are you staying?" They walked through the concourse towards the rental car place together, Thom a few steps behind Kyan. Thom kept pretending not to notice the glances.

Thom had forgotten the feel of Florida, the heavy, moisture-fat air descending onto his shoulders, pushing aside the memory of New York's windchill. He paused in the middle of the parking lot, the keys to his rental car danging from his fingers.

"Feels like home," Kyan said. He lolled his head back, exposing his throat to the setting sun. "You going to your hotel?"

"Probably. I think I might get sidetracked along the way, though."

"First night of vacation. Don't overdo it."

"When do I _not_ overdo it?" Thom said and laughed. "Anyway, I can take it."

"If you say so. Drinks tomorrow?"

"Why not?" He watched Kyan walk away.

All he could find on the radio was Top 40, and at every stoplight he waited to see if any of the landmarks would call out to him. Everything he passed looked like a tourist trap, somehow dingy-looking in spite of the bright paint. There were about thirty thousand cars around him, but he was hard-pressed to find any people wandering the streets; maybe it was because of the time, too early for happy hour, too late for shopping.

Thom leaned on the horn as some asshole in a Jetta cut him off. The other drivers on the road stared fixedly ahead of them, as though pretending they were the only people that existed.

"I think I'm walking from now on," Thom said to himself, hitting 'scan' on the radio again. He tried to remember the name of the bar he'd gone to the last time he was in Miami, but he wasn't sure if it was still around and he didn't want to go on an aimless expedition around the city searching for something that might not even exist.

Thom's hotel room was done in ice-cream colors, mint green, creamsicle orange. It was a momentary distraction from the fact that in all other respects, the room looked like every hotel room he'd ever been in. Thom sat on the edge of the bed and mentally rearranged the furniture as he changed clothes. Replace the chairs with something by Christopher Pillet, maybe. Get a prettier bedspread. Take those ugly generic paintings off the walls. He reached for his T-shirt and then abruptly lost interest, shoving himself off the bed and walking out to the terrace.

He imagined that Florida smelled of ripe bananas and passion fruit. He sat down in one of the lounge chairs and lit a cigarette, his foot braced against the railing, the vinyl slats of the chair sticky against his bare back.

His urge was to go for the cell phone, just to check back home and see if anything had gone wrong, and then it occurred to him that he might be acting just a little bit obsessive.

He tried to think of people he could call, friends he could drum up. But he hated blowing into town and announcing, "Here I am, now entertain me!" He always felt as if he were crashing someone else's party. He wished he'd thought of this beforehand. He wished someone was with him now.

He wished he could remember the name of that damned bar.

"I knew you were going to get bored," Kyan said when he called, his voice distorted over the cell phone crackle.

"I'm not bored," Thom protested. "I'm just, like, trying to figure out where I should go tonight. I mean, you're from here, you've got to know a couple places."

"I'm actually from about five hundred miles north of here, Thom."

"Oh." Thom shrugged, before realizing Kyan couldn't see the gesture. "Well, if you want to go ahead and _measure_..."

Kyan laughed. "We'll see how well I do with this. I'll be there in fifteen minutes or something."

"Which is code for an hour and a half."

"Well, yeah."

When Kyan finally showed up, they wandered all over Miami Beach until finding a restaurant that assaulted Thom's theme-loathing sensibilities, one with actual grass on the floor of the lobby and a wall composed of something rigged to look like a waterfall, fluids rushing between sheets of plexiglass. The air was thick with incense smoke. Thom's sinuses were already on fire.

"This is a verra verra bad idea," Thom mumbled in Kyan's ear. "I'm not _that_ hungry."

Kyan made sure the maitre d' hadn't noticed Thom being rude. "I think it's cute."

"Why, because you've suffered some brain damage?"

"New experiences, Thom. Gotta be open to 'em."

Thom was about to say, "Well, walking into incoming traffic would be a new experience, but I don't think I should be open to _that,_ " but before he could the maitre d' spotted them and it was too late to bolt for the door.

Thom instinctively straightened his posture as they walked towards the table, aware of the heads turning his way. Kyan looked back at him.

"What're you doing?"

"Nothing," Thom said, embarrassed and not knowing why.

Once Thom sat down, the incense smell didn't seem so strong. He thought he could get used to this; the murmur of people at surrounding tables was comforting in some way, a buffer against the tinkly New Age music playing over the sound system. He felt surrounded, cosseted by the sound.

"Drinks?" Kyan said.

Thom broke away from the ambient noise, which left him feeling mildly unsettled. Somewhere in the back of his head was the thought, _It's not a real connection at all._ "Good idea," he said mildly.

Kyan lived in his own world, Thom decided, sometime after the appetizers arrived. He sat across the table, folding lettuce over his fork, remote and self-contained. Thom looked over into the deep-set, slightly narrow eyes, but couldn't even see his reflection in them. He wanted to reach across the table, stop his hand, talk faster, do something to make him smile.

Thom took a drink (some heady mixture of citrus vodka and Cointreau, in a fragile-stemmed martini glass) and resisted the urge to press the glass against his jaw line. He could feel a damp diamond pattern forming in between his shoulder blades; the back of his shirt would be soaked by the time dinner was over, he just knew it.

"Are you _sweating?_ " Kyan said.

"Yeah, a little."

Kyan grinned. "Ya Yankee. Just be glad we didn't have to come here in August. This is a balmy winter night, my friend, and you're practically _melting_." Abruptly, he leaned across the table. "You're okay, though?"

Thom shrugged. "I think I'll get over it."

The food was good, if overly expensive. Thom fished his credit card out of his wallet and put it on the table.

"My treat, okay?"

"You don't need to do that. I'll give you half."

Thom rolled his eyes.

"Well, I mean..."

"Come on." Thom tried to catch the waiter's eye. "Feel like going somewhere else? I'd like to go find some sweet young thing and bring him back to the hotel."

"Don't want to conserve your energy?"

Thom made a face. Kyan stretched like a cat and said, "Yeah, I don't want to go back either. Let's see what there is."

The bar was called Temptation, with a kitschy tiki theme, that Thom only hoped was ironic. The bass was thumping.

Kyan shouted, "Want a drink?"

Thom shouted his order back and staked a place on the far wall. He watched Kyan move effortlessly through the crowd towards the bar.

There was a man about two steps to Thom's right; late twenties, cinnamon-skinned, with incongruously pale, sad eyes in an open face. Thom tilted his head, looking for the slight smile, the sidelong look that said, _Possibly..._

But the man just gave him a shy grin, eyes lowered to the floor, and moved off. Thom shrugged wordlessly after him.

Not a big deal. That was the whole point, wasn't it, go out, find someone, see if you click. You didn't click, it wasn't important in the long run.

Just like everything else.

He needed another drink.

Just in time, he spotted Kyan coming back. Amazing how he could move through a crowd without seeming to be touched. The boy in the bubble.

"Great," Thom shouted when Kyan got close enough to him, reaching out his hand, not quite brushing Kyan's slim fingers, curled around moisture-beaded glasses. "Which one's mine?"

It was because he'd gotten used to not having a vacation, Thom told himself. He stood on the veranda, winds from the ocean spraying his face with salt, his cigarette wedged between his fingers. His latest drink had been reduced to slivers of ice and bilious-looking fluid. He could sense the building pulsing behind him.

It had to be because he didn't know what to do with himself, that was a good explanation for why he couldn't muster up the energy to go back downstairs and try to find something real in the bodies and thumping bass. Or maybe it was because he'd had too much to drink. Maybe he hadn't had _enough_ to drink. Maybe he was just getting old.

He crushed out his cigarette and went for more alcohol, though his head was beginning to spin. There was a gaggle of lovelies around the bar, but given that he was sure he was radiating troll vibes, he didn't attempt to make eye contact.

He took the drink he didn't want and mechanically turned away, leaving the tip on the counter. He saw Kyan flowing through the crowd, face flushed but hair as immovable as always.

"I _wish_ they'd stop playing jungle," Kyan said. "Not really the right crowd for it. Hey, are you all right?" He put a hand on Thom's shoulder, fingers brushing the back of his neck. For a moment it was almost too much contact, unexpected and overwhelming.

"No," Thom said. "No, I guess not."

Kyan considered for a moment, thankfully not taking his hand away. "Look, I'm about ready to leave. Want to come with me?"

Thom nodded.

Heading towards Kyan's hotel in the cab, Thom wondered if he should have just toughed it out. It was a bad sign if he was going to start scurrying away at the first dip in self-confidence. He should have just gone and mingled a little more, waited for the feeling to pass. He'd have gotten over it.

"Where's your hotel again?" Kyan said.

"Um." Thom stared out of the window at the candy-colored buildings, now plunged into shadow, and he didn't know what he felt. "You think that...it's just...Ky, being by myself's starting to freak me out."

"Okay," Kyan said.

Kyan's hotel room looked exactly like Thom's did, except it was colored pinky-red instead of orange and green. There was a big 'Welcome to Miami' basket of fruit next to the television.

"How many times has _this_ been recycled?" Thom said, poking the basket. "'Hi, the last six people didn't want it, but maybe you will!'"

"It's not that bad. Except maybe for this. Oh, ugh." Kyan tossed an apple, riddled with soft brown spots, into the garbage. "Okay..."

"It's bad."

"Yeah." Kyan picked up the basket. "Want to sit down? I don't think I want this in the same room with me." Thom sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Kyan slide open the door to the balcony and shove the basket outside.

Kyan said, "I'm beginning to have doubts about the notion of hospitality here. How're you doing?"

"Fine. Great. Couldn't be happier."

"Really?" Kyan sat down next to him.

"No."

Kyan said nothing for a minute, silent and calm, arm around Thom's shoulders. "Remember what I told you about how I was in high school?"

"Yeah."

"I used to want to be invisible. That way no one would have to deal with me. If I tried hard enough, I could almost believe it was real."

"Yeah," Thom said. He patted Kyan's leg absently, just so he'd feel it.

"And, you know, it almost was? Real, I mean. When you close yourself off, nothing gets to you. There's no extra noise. You feel safe. And it gets to be a habit. Automatic." Kyan's fingers were resting on his hairline, palm warm against the back of his neck. "At least it teaches you something."

"What?"

"How to recognize," Kyan said, "what can really touch you." He took his hand away. Thom turned to face him; Kyan looked back, dark eyes steady, patiently waiting.

Kyan never closed his eyes, even when Thom couldn't help but close his, even when Thom gasped, " _Fuck,_ Ky -" into the back of Kyan's head, black hair that tasted of sweat and mousse trailing through his mouth. He imagined Kyan's eyes as a beacon, their deep-set gaze shining through the night.

Thom woke with Kyan's head pressed into the crook of his elbow. The sun was shining through the window; Thom wanted to hiss and press his face into the pillow to avoid it. He extricated his arm and got out of the bed. Kyan groaned faintly, rolled over and resumed snoring. Thom put his pants back on.

He slid open the door to the balcony, almost tripping over the fruit basket. Some of the bananas had gotten dislodged when Kyan shoved it outside, they littered the balcony floor.

"Lonely little basket," Thom said, nudging it with his big toe. He sat down on one of the chairs and lit a cigarette.

The first drag made him dizzy. Thom shaded his eyes against the sunshine and listened to the noise of the city, horns honking, people talking below him. He closed his eyes and felt as though he were spinning out into the sky, connected to everything, but ultimately, just himself.


End file.
